Page 39 of Landing Her Eagle
I don’t want to fight anymore. I want to go to bed, to feel his arms around me and ignore the fact that in less than forty-eight hours, I’ll say goodbye to him.
“Okay,” I say to end this. “Can you hold me, please?” I raise my head to place a kiss on his jaw.
“I want nothing more, sunshine,” Logan says, placing a gentle kiss on my temple. We help each other undress and hold each other under the covers. Even after everything we’ve said tonight, there’s so much left unsaid between us. The ghosts aren’t the only things haunting this room tonight. Logan falls asleep first, and I let the rhythmic sound of his breathing and the soothing beat of his heart under my head pillowed on his chest lull me to sleep.
24
LOGAN
I’m rarelya big fan of Monday mornings, but this one inspires a special kind of loathing. I leave today, and I dread going. I’m in our bedroom, putting the last of my clothes in my bag.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to ask Liam to take me to the airport or hire a car?”
I need to be at the international airport in Philly in four hours for my late afternoon flight to Madrid. I’ll arrive in Spain early tomorrow morning. I regret not adjusting my schedule so that I had more time here with Daphne. I didn’t expect it to be so hard to leave her. Truth be told, I didn’t expect to be leaving her behind. I thought she would join me. I should’ve known she wouldn’t drop everything and run away with me. Usually, I appreciate her steadiness, but now it’s just something else keeping us apart.
“Hush. I want to spend every moment possible with you before you leave. I’m taking you to the airport. That’s why I took today off,” she scolds me.
We woke in each other’s arms Sunday morning and ignored our heated words from the night before. We need to talk about our future, and I need to know that we’re on the same page, but I don’t want to ruin the little time we have left by upsetting Daphne again. I didn’t realize how deeply the deaths of her parents and grandmother had affected her. I knew she was sad, and I knew she missed them, of course, but I didn’t realize how abandoned she felt.
I don’t know how to reassure her. I can’t stay. I need to work. If she wanted to be together, she could come with me.
“Is that the mail truck?” I ask, trying to get Daphne out of the bedroom. Wow, never thought I’d think that thought.
“I’ll go check,” she says, starting down the hallway. I put the necklace I purchased at the gift shop at Sunset Beach under Daph’s pillow. I daydream about her finding it there at bedtime. I’ve left a few of my shirts behind, unsaid messages that I’m coming back, that even when I’m gone, I want her wrapped up in me. The shirts mark her as mine when she thinks there is no us. Especially then.
I snagged the tank top she wore to bed last night. I’m not going to wear it. A man wearing a woman’s shirt is nowhere near as sexy as a woman wearing a man’s shirt. Plus, my abs are too ripped to pull off the Winnie-the-Pooh style effectively. I’d need more of a belly to give the proper vibe. Anyway, the shirt is for cuddling purposes. I also packed a little bottle full of Daphne’s shampoo, so I can sniff it when I’m missing her. That’s not weird. Okay, itisweird, but it won’t get me strange attention from the TSA agents like a pair of her panties would. Of course, I’m sure they’ve seen it all. Panties in my luggage probably wouldn’t earn me any raised eyebrows.
I come up behind Daphne where she’s standing at the counter going through the mail, wrap my arms around her waist, and rest my chin on her shoulder, nuzzling behind her ear and chuckling when she shivers. That’s one spot I can always elicit a response from with proper attention.
“Anything interesting?” I ask, seeing the mail pile.
“You got an envelope, but other than that, it’s junk,” she replies, passing me an envelope over her shoulder. I don’t recognize the New York City return address, so it can’t be anything too important. I put it on the counter and resume nuzzling Daphne.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” she asks. She turns in my embrace so we’re facing each other.
I press a soft kiss to her lips. All I want to do is spend our remaining time together kissing and holding her, but we must show restraint. I don’t need to be going through security with a prominent hard-on. If we continue this way, that will be the situation.
I pull back from our kiss. “I’ll open it later. I’m sure it’s nothing important.” My stomach growls. “What do you want to do for lunch? We can stop somewhere to eat on the way to the airport, or we can make sandwiches and hang out here a bit longer.”
Our best plan is to head out because the longer we stay here, the more difficult it will be for me to leave when it’s time. This little house has become my home this past week. Yeah, I’ve lived here before, but it’s been the place I stayed between jobs. It’s not been my home until now.
My home is wherever Daphne is.
Daphne presses her lips together. “We’ve got leftovers, but”—she heaves a tremendous sigh and looks away from me—“let’s just go.” She must know what I do—we can’t start saying goodbye until we leave, and the longer we stay, the harder it will be.
“Let’s eat on the way. If we stay here, there’s a chance I’ll seduce you and tie you to the bed,” she jokes.
It’s on the tip of the tongue to tell her if she seduces me, I’d stay forever, but I don’t want her to think I’m leaving because we haven’t had sex yet. I’m not an asshole like that. Instead, I laugh, knowing she’s messing around.
“Honey, I’m up—literally and figuratively—for tying each other to the bed, and I’m willing to be the first one tied up because I’m a giver like that.”
Okay, Logan, stop thinking about bondage because it’s going to be a hellacious flight if you can’t lower the tray table because your cock is hard and in the way.
While Daphne dresses, I double-check my bags to ensure I have my passport and other documents in order. I snag the envelope that came in today’s mail and slip it in the pocket of my carry-on. I’ll read it eventually. I need to check a bag for my clothing and camera accessories like tripods, flashes, and lenses, but the important things like my camera bodies, the most expensive lenses, a flash, memory cards, and my laptop go in my carry-on bags. I don’t let them out of my sight. It’s much easier to buy new underwear than replace thousands of dollars worth of gear. Everything is in order like I expected it to be. I’ve packed my belongings so often it’s more or less muscle memory at this point.
Gorgeous in her jeans and purple sweater, Daph emerges from our bedroom. “Ready to go?”
No, I’m not.
